


So Glad You're Here

by kiiouex



Category: Persona 3, Persona Q
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Persona 3 Spoilers, Persona Q AU, Second person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 11:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4665327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He speaks first; “You saw me die?”<br/>“I did,” you say, and then there is a very big lump in your throat that you need to swallow down. “You took a bullet for Ken. You died.” </p><p>Persona Q AU where Shinji arrives from the culture festival like usual, but everyone else is there from November. 100% Akihiko's feelings on getting to see his boyfriend again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Glad You're Here

**Author's Note:**

> Getting to see Shinji again in Persona Q gave me feelings and then I wrote this :V I think?? I got all the dates right to avoid problems?? let me know if I ruined everything (or if you liked it)
> 
> As usual, thanks to input and criticism from [telekinesiskid](archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid)

Looking back, you think you know when he appeared. When you’d all been drawn into the velvet room for the first time, hadn’t there been an extra shadowy figure at the back? But there was so much else to focus on, Minato and the attendants and the bizarre velvet blue elevator, and then it had _dropped_ and you think someone might have been reaching out to you, but why wouldn’t they? It had all been chaos, panic, the room and the fall and the crash, so it’s no wonder you only noticed after, when everything calmed down.

He stands at the back of your group like a spectre as you all look around the crash site, some new high school. You see him first, and the others follow your wide-eyed stare to him. He just looks uncomfortable to be the sudden focus of attention, shifting quietly under eight shocked gazes before finally he asks, “What?”

Something shatters after that word, and you’re the first to move, to surge up into his personal space and see the surprise and disbelief and your own confused adrenaline reflected in his dark eyes. You grab him by the lapels and he tries to worm away, he always hated being touched, but you don’t let him go, grip tight, caught up in the fact that he is _solid_ and the coarse fabric of his coat is exactly right, and you say, “Shinji?”

“Yeah?” he replies, and his eyes flicker off yours, to see the rest of the group still transfixed and disbelieving. You can hear Minato whisper something to the blue-suited attendants, you can hear Ken asking Mitsuru something in a cracking voice and the shadow of her uncertain reply, but you don’t break your gaze from his face for even a second. Eventually he looks back at you, and there are heavy bags under his eyes, but there always are, and he’s just as confused as you. He asks, “What the fuck is going on?”

You don’t know how to answer that. This is your actual fantasy, getting a second chance with him, and you don’t know what to do with it. You think you might start crying.

He just stares. “Akihiko?”

 “I saw,” you start, and stop, and the others are crowding in, all wondering if he’s real, if he’s back from the dead, staring between him and you, and you tell him, “I saw you die.”

His eyes go wide, he opens his mouth, and takes in the complete seriousness of your expression and how it’s mirrored on the faces of everyone behind you, and he closes his mouth again. He doesn’t know what to say. You don’t know what to say. You’re glad you’re not crying, but that’s the only one of your emotions you can interpret anymore, the rest are lost to a huge jumbled sea of relief and confusion and a cold, aching pang of _is he real?_ You don’t know.

Mitsuru or Minato or one of the attendants start doing something, and you’re only really aware of it when the people behind you start to move around. You find that your knuckles are white around the collar of Shinji’s coat, and you slowly let him go. When you turn to look, the rest of the group is dispersing, Junpei and Aigis gently hustled off by Yukari, the others heading up and down the halls of the strange new school you’re in while Minato follows the attendants back in to the ruined velvet room.

Ken hasn’t moved yet, standing still but with horrible shakes wracking his shoulders. You think he’s realised what you have, that Shinji doesn’t seem to _know_ , and you don’t understand and you don’t know what to say. You know Ken has been coming up with speeches to Shinji every night for the last few weeks. You still want him first.

Mitsuru has lingered too, and she’s eyeing Shinji just as intently as you are, but she says, “Priority one is finding out where we are and how we arrived.” Her expression states that Shinji is definitely in line to be next priority, and she puts a heavy hand on Ken’s shoulder. You can see her nails dig into his shoulder as she turns him towards her. “Amada. A moment?”

Ken cranes his head back to stare, wide-eyed and furious and scared, but he lets Mitsuru lead him away and you are so, so grateful to her.

You are aware, in a distant kind of way, that your group has been making quite the scene and yet none of the school’s students seem to have noticed. You are aware in a much more real kind of way that you are now the only person standing in front of Shinji, and he’s still as confused as you are. You have an opportunity that you never thought you’d have again; to talk to him.

“Shall we… find somewhere to talk?” you ask Shinji quietly. Even though a group of the new school’s strange students walk past with their eyes sliding smoothly over you, you think it would be good to find somewhere private anyway. The boy’s bathroom is empty, and Shinji follows you in easily enough, watches as you lock the door.

It’s a minute before either of you say anything else. You can’t stop looking at him, seeing him real and alive and moving around. What does it mean, for you, for Ken, for Mitsuru? How doesn’t he _know?_

He speaks first; “You saw me die?”

“I did,” you say, and then there is a very big lump in your throat that you need to swallow down. “You took a bullet for Ken. You died.”

He takes it better than you expect – from all his old interactions with Ken, maybe he had guessed what it would come to – but there’s still wary surprise in his eyes. “When?”

“A month ago,” you tell him, forcing the words out. “The night of the October full moon.”

There’s a weird kind of epiphany dawning in his eyes and you have a sick feeling that maybe he _did_ know what he would have to do. He cocks his head slowly and repeats, “October?”

“Yeah. On the fourth.” You’d burned the date onto your brain and known it would be a black mark on the calendar for the rest of your life. Worse than it had been before. Shinji’s just nodding and you can’t help but feel betrayed, but you bite it all down. He’s here in the present, you don’t want to poison that.

 “It’s September,” Shinji replies, and it’s your turn to answer his words with a disbelieving stare. He sees, and adds, “The day of the culture festival?”

“That was months ago,” you tell him, and you feel dizzy. He thinks it’s September – maybe he’s actually _from_ September. You don’t know where you are, how that elevator worked, and Shinji’s standing in front of you _right now_ , warm and real and alive, not bleeding out on the pavement, and maybe it’s true. Maybe he’s from September, and you’re from November. You let out a shaky laugh, and ask, “How is this possible?”

“I don’t know,” he says simply. Your story is the one with no proof, and he could doubt you, but the look on your face - the whole rest of the team staring like that, Ken - it was all enough.

You’ve missed him. There is still a very real danger you might tear up.

You step closer, and he lets you. Your head falls to his shoulder, and you shake for a while, breathing in the smell of him without the metallic tang of his blood and when his arms close around you it’s something you thought you’d lost forever coming back in a heady rush.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you, and it’s _ridiculous_ because why should he be sorry, he’s the one that died and all you’ve been able to do since is hope that you can live up to all he’s left you.

“I saw you die,” you tell him, and you’ve already said that, you think he’s the only thing holding you upright, and you push a kiss to his lips, desperate and shaky and there is very little romance to kissing someone who might not be real while you try not to cry in a boy’s bathroom, but he kisses you back. Something in you cracks, something you thought was already broken.

He says your name, keeps his arms tight around you and it is so much more than you ever thought you’d get and you can’t tell if you’re happy or sad or totally out of your mind. You lose a bit of time just to the feel of him, the scratch of his hair against your cheek, the coarse touch of his hands to the back of your neck, and you never want to move again. If you move, he might disappear, you might watch his last breath trickle out in a back alley and you can’t, you can’t, you –

“Aki,” he says, and you shiver.

You try to focus because as much as you want to indulge in whatever this is and pretend like he never died and you’ll never have to acknowledge that he did, it wouldn’t be fair to Ken and it wouldn’t be fair to Mitsuru, and you draw in one last shaky breath and let him go. “We need to work out where we are,” you say, and your voice comes out distant, deadened. “We need to find the others and… and work out a plan.”

“Figure out how I’m here,” he says, and some part of you really doesn’t want to unravel the mystery in case you don’t like what you find at the end, but he’s serious so you nod and unlock the bathroom door with his hand in yours.

You think maybe, at least, you’ll be able to pretend for a while. 


End file.
